Archaeologists working to unearth Roman artifacts from a construction site at Bloomberg Place in the City of London Photo: PA
Posted on 04/14/2013 9:56:15 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The greatest find of Roman antiquities in London, just by Mansion House Tube station, owes its survival to a humble stream -- the River Walbrook. The brook doesn't run far -- from Finsbury, on the north edge of the City of London, before emptying into the Thames by Cannon Street railway station.
It has been used as a rubbish dump, covered over and thoroughly ignored for thousands of years but, still, Old Man Walbrook just keeps rolling away. And it is thanks to the Walbrook that some 10,000 objects from Londinium -- including an unprecedented haul of 250 leather shoes, pewter dinner plates and dozens of wooden writing tablets -- have survived in better condition than anywhere else in the Roman Empire. In the few weeks left of excavation, even more finds are bound to turn up.
What has emerged is a thickly packed development of long, strip buildings, with ovens, kilns and a mill, nestling up against a Roman temple; a bustling residential, religious and industrial mix. The teeming excavation site -- in the shadow of Bloomberg Place, where the European headquarters of the financial information empire are due to be completed by 2016 -- has already been dubbed the Pompeii of the North...
"There's an enormous collection of well-preserved shoes, and they're in all sizes. It's through simple things like that, that you find out important things -- whether or not children were living here. This was a very unstable city to begin with, with several rebellions, and you wonder whether the colonisers are bringing their families or not." Among the shoes there are several army boots -- "Some of the best-preserved in the Roman Empire," says Michael Marshall, "they're really, really great."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Archaeologists working to unearth Roman artifacts from a construction site at Bloomberg Place in the City of London Photo: PA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22084384
http://news.google.com/news/story?q=Bloomberg+Place
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield. |
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That's somewhat ominous. Will Bloomie try to lay down retroactive dietary laws for the Romans?
untouched Roman territory, 23 feet below modern ground level. And, as 3,500 tonnes of soil were removed by 60 archaeologists from the three-acre site, the finds poured forth, covering the entire Roman occupation of Britain – from 43AD to the early 5th century
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That is the reason for global warming : as this part of London is now 23 feet closer to the sun ?
“It has been used as a rubbish dump, covered over and thoroughly ignored for thousands of years but, still, Old Man Walbrook just keeps rolling away.”
WHAT? The REAL story here is that there’s a body of water NOT on the radar of the EnviroWeenies demanding some ‘Superfund’ funding! *SMIRK*
“the River Walbrook”?? How dare these people disturb these wetlands. Quick, somebody call the English equivalent of the EPA!
What’s wrong with a Superfund site? I live on a Superfund site.
Great post. It seems counter-intuitive that a site near water would protect organic stuff like paper, wood, and leather so much better than other sites, but apparently the sealing power of the mud from any access by oxygen is the key, just like in the bog sites.
Amazing finds! I hope all of it is well-researched and catalogued.
That’s an interesting Roman-era shoe. I am sure some fashion designer is taking notes. :)
The phallic hawness symbol belonged to a vewy gweat fwiend of one of my ancestors in Wome. And anything made of gold. Handle them not woughly, I pway.
Biggis Dickis Handley-Smythe XXXXXVIII
Very cool. Thanks for the ping. Good old mud to the rescue for preservation.
So that’s where I lost the gold....
Just wait 'til Bloomberg's etymologists tell him the origin of the term, "salary."
Don’t tell him, or he’ll probably cut off all his workers’ pay.
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